The Emperor (10 page)

‘
You are not hurt, beyond a bruise or two?' he said at
last.

‘
Not hurt? I am shaken to pieces! How dare you use me
so? And to speak to me so, in front of the servants!'

‘
Oh, yes, the servants,' James said wryly, looking away
from her.

‘
I have never been so used in all my life! If my father
were here, he would - he would
strike
you! Who is it you
think you have married? Do you think you can -'

‘
Be quiet,' James said, so intensely that Mary Ann
stopped, realizing that she was now alone with him, and
unsure how far he would go. 'Listen to me - two things.
Firstly, I am truly sorry that I hurt you. It was wrong of me,
but I was too angry to know what I was doing. It is not my
way to use violence. I am shocked and ashamed, and I beg
you to forgive me.’

She was silent, watching him cautiously. She thought his
apology was sincere, but there was no humility in his voice, which warned her that there was more to come.

‘
Secondly,' he said, lifting his head a little, 'you must
remember that you are no longer Miss Hobsbawn of
Hobsbawn House. Your father is no longer your guardian –
that authority has passed to me, and under the law I have
complete control over you. You must know that it is in my
power to compel you to obey me.’

Now she was too angry to speak. She glared at him, as he
continued, 'I am not an unreasonable man, madam. I do not
wish to ill-treat you. I have left you pretty much alone, to do
as you please. Anything you want, within reason, you shall
have. But you will obey my orders. You will not touch the
phaeton.'

‘Why not?' she demanded defiantly.

‘
Never mind,' he said, and taking her arm gently, turned
her towards the house. She shook herself free, but walked
with him. 'If you want a park carriage, I will have one made
for you. You need only ask.'

‘I should like,' she said in a low voice, 'to kill you.'

‘
I dare say,' he said wearily. 'But the feeling will pass.
Everything passes, good and ill. Come, madam,' he added,
seeing her white, set face, and feeling a little sorry for her,
‘we are wed, and we must make the best of things. I have no
wish to make you unhappy.’

They went into the house, and James swept her past the
hovering, anxious Oxhey, and brought her to the foot of the
stairs. 'You had better go to your room,' he said. 'I'll send
Dakers to you.’

He sent up not only her woman, but a good supply of hot
water and a bottle of arnica, and with Dakers' tight-lipped
help, she undressed and bathed. The hot water soothed her
and allowed her time to think. Fury and tears alike must be
held back in front of her waiting woman, but behind her
calm face, her thoughts seethed. He was right, of course. It
was no accident that up here in the north, the people used
the word 'master' instead of 'husband'. The law permitted
him to do what he liked with her, short of actually killing
her – beat her, starve her, lock her up, deprive her of every
thing, even of her children.

She belonged to him; and even if she ran home to her
father, it would avail her little. She could not be divorced
from James, and however strongly her father sympathized
with her, she would for ever afterwards be disgraced.
Society would not receive her, and she would not be able to
marry anyone else, but would remain a prisoner in her
father's house for the rest of her life. And when her father
died, what then?
No, she must stay here, and behave submissively to
James. That galled her pride abominably, and part of her
wanted to go home to Papa, just to chew him that he could
not govern her. But that would not be sensible, nor
consonant with duty. It would be much more sensible to let
James think he had won, and by behaving meekly towards
him, to enjoy what freedoms she had.

She remembered with an inward blush her recent folly in
thinking that they might come to love each other. That was
obviously impossible: he had married her, as he said, simply
to get an heir for Morland Place, and now that he had one,
he wanted nothing more from her than her quiescence. But
she was sure now that there was some other underlying
reason for his moodiness she had not found out; something
in his past, which the family and servants must know about.

By the time she went downstairs in answer to the
summons of the dinner bell, she was completely calm. The
bruises on her wrist were covered by the long sleeves of her
sage-green silk dinner gown, and no-one could have known
by looking at her that anything untoward had happened.
When she entered the drawing-room, the first thing she
noticed was that the pianoforte had gone, and the harpsi
chord was back in its place, but she was so well under
control that she merely raised an enquiring eyebrow towards
Edward.

‘
James seemed to think it would be better upstairs in the
long saloon,' Edward said apologetically. 'It will be the very thing when we have dances up there, and indeed, it was very
large for this room. Too large, perhaps.'

‘
You are quite in the right,' Mary Ann said calmly, not
glancing at James. She sat down in her usual chair and took her sewing from the little table beside her. 'It was too large.
The harpsichord suits this room a great deal better.'

‘
I'm glad you think so,' Ned said gratefully, 'because,
now I come to think of it, Mary would have been very upset
to come home from London and find it gone. And you can always go up to the saloon when you want to play.'

‘
Yes,' she said serenely, taking the first tiny stitch of a
long, long hem, 'I can always do that.’

 
By February 1796 Lucy had grown so large that moving
around was difficult, and she began to stay in bed until late
in the morning. It was a habit Chetwyn thoroughly
approved, saying that for the first time in their married life,
he could be sure where to find her. It became his pleasant custom to -visit her in her chamber, timing his arrival to coincide with her breakfast tray.

Following the servant in one morning he paused on the threshhold to look at her with affection. Their marriage had
been a contented one. After their wedding, they had
consummated the marriage for the first few nights with some solemnity and a great deal of shyness, but as nothing had immediately come of it, they had left off, both having many more interesting things to do. Time had passed more quickly than they realized, as he had reminded her after the curricle
race. They had slept together for a fortnight in a spirit of
sober endeavour, and at the end of that time Lucy had been able to inform him in a brisk, matter-of-fact way, that their efforts had been rewarded. Since then they had resumed the
relationship which seemed so much more natural to them
both, that of brother and sister, of childhood friends.

She looked up now and saw him, and gave him a
welcoming smile which was more like an urchin's grin. Her
short-cropped hair was sleep-ruffled into a crest, and the
shawl she had pulled on was slipping from her shoulders.
Her bed was a comfortable nest of letters and parcels and
books and cats and handkerchiefs, and a hound puppy peace
ably chewing one of her shoes; and for a moment Chetwyn
was quite tempted to get in with her, for the sheer cosiness
of it.

Since she had been rendered immobile, the household
had shifted its focus to her bedchamber. The cats had been the first, with their instinct for comfort, to colonize her bed, but gradually everyone gravitated towards it. The servants
brought her news or a splinter to be removed, or asked
wistfully if there was anything they could do for her;
gardeners came to bring her flowers and fruit, stablemen to
ask her advice, villagers to have their disputes settled and
their problems solved.

The servant with the tray managed to find room to place
it across her knees, and the compression of the bedclothes
revealed the huge bulge in front of her. Chetwyn grinned.

‘
You look exactly like a little girl dressed up with a
pillow, not in the least like a pregnant woman,' he said.

‘
I feel
exactly
like a pregnant woman, thank you,' Lucy said sternly. 'And let me tell you, Chetwyn, I wouldn't do
this for anyone else.'

‘
I sincerely hope not!' he laughed. 'Let me pour your
chocolate for you. Did you sleep well?'

‘
No,' she said simply. 'Do you know what I most look
forward to, after this baby is born?'

‘Going riding,' he said certainly.

‘
More even than that – to being able to lie on my front
again. As soon as I'm out of bed, I'm going to go and find
myself a good patch of grass, and lie down flat on my face
for hours and hours and hours.'

‘It won't be so very long now,' Chetwyn comforted her.

‘
I think it must be an elephant child I'm carrying,' she
grumbled, but not unhappily. 'None of those little shirts and
dresses Docwra has been labouring over is going to fit. We'll
have to wrap it in tablecloths and push it around on a cart.'

‘
Fool!' said Chetwyn, examining her breakfast tray
critically, and choosing a dried fig to nibble. 'What on earth
is that extraordinary-looking mess in that bowl?'

‘
Mrs Gordon makes it for me. She calls it brose. It's
oatmeal and honey and cream and some other things, I can't
remember. It's supposed to ensure the baby will be sweet-
tempered. Will you eat some of it for me? I don't like to
hurt her feelings by sending it back untouched, but I can't
relish anything so sweet first thing in the morning.'

‘Not me!' Chetwyn said hastily. 'Give it to the cats.'

‘They'd be sick. Try the puppy.’

Chetwyn obediently put the bowl on the floor, detached
the puppy from the shoe and placed it beside it, and
 
watched as a successful union was achieved between the
two. His wife recalled his attention, saying, ‘Chetwyn, why
have we no house in Town?'

‘
Well, we have, of course. Aylesbury House, in Picca
dilly. You must have passed it a hundred times. Why did
you think we hadn't?'

‘
Because ever since I've known you, you've always stayed
with Flora and Charles when you've been in Town. Why did
we never stay in Aylesbury House?'

‘
It's let out on lease, to the Staplers' Club. It's a horrid
great barn of a place, quite suitable for a gentlemen's club, but there was no living in it. Grandfather let it after Grand
mother died, and Papa used to rent a house for the Season,
if Mama wanted to go up to Town. When he went up on
business, he always stayed in an hotel. Why do you ask,
anyway?'

‘
I've been thinking that after the baby is born, I should
like to spend some time in Town. I shall have had enough of
rustication for a while, but with poor Flora gone, it would be
rather awkward to be staying at Chelmsford House.'

‘
Especially if Charles don't invite us,' Chetwyn agreed
cheerfully.

‘
And we haven't heard a word from him since Christmas.
Do you think he's all right?'

‘
I imagine so. I expect he's just getting things sorted out.
Well, Luce, there's no problem here. We can perfectly well
rent a house for the Season, if that's what you want; and if
you should happen to see a place that strikes your fancy, we
might take it on a long lease.'

‘Really? Oh Chetwyn, you are a trump card!’

Chetwyn grinned. 'We'll have to find a house near to the
Park, so that you can drive out every day in your curricle
and-four and shock the dowagers. We ought to have a place
of our own: it's time we gave our own dinners and balls.'